


Raised by Bats

by Clamour_for_Glamour



Category: Tanz der Vampire - Steinman/Kunze, Voltaire (Musician) - Fandom
Genre: Ewigkeits make an unsettling audience, Implied Nudity, It wouldn't be tanz without walking in on someone in the bathroom, Needs More Magda, The midnight ball, There is no such thing as enough Magda, Vampires
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-30
Updated: 2018-09-30
Packaged: 2019-07-20 19:24:43
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,432
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16143893
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Clamour_for_Glamour/pseuds/Clamour_for_Glamour
Summary: Aurelio Voltaire is hired by some weirder than usual Goths to play at their event on the winter solstice.





	Raised by Bats

**Author's Note:**

> Featuring my headcanon for explaining why some characters in the musical turn straight away and others don't- Vampires turn between 00:00 and 00:01, because magic and the narrative power of fairy tales. The stroke of midnight is important and powerful.

There had been an email a little over a year ago, asking the musician if he would be available to play an event in Europe in the middle of winter, and offering to pay his travel costs and accommodation. He usually toured Europe in summer, or maybe autumn, to coincide with the various festivals. But after a few exchanges, it was worked out that he would be able to play a few shows in London and Germany the following week. The event was taking place in a privately owned castle in rural Romania, and while he couldn’t find any information on the event aside from what seemed to be a reference to a musical in German, the advance that had landed in his bank account to allow him to book the plane tickets had been real enough. If these people wanted to email him in character, that didn’t really matter.

Aurelio Voltaire was playing at the Midnight Ball.

It seemed standard enough and it certainly was not the first time he had been booked to play to a hall full of goths. There had been a taxi waiting at the airport, but the driver had only spoken very limited English and seemed reluctant to drive the last part of the route, repeatedly asking if his passenger was sure and certain that he wanted to go to the castle. Either it was because of the weather, which was the kind of awful snowstorm you would expect a few days before Christmas in the mountains, or he was in on the gig and was helping to lay the Vampire mythos on thick. Either way, he had driven away at high speed as soon as the bags were out of the car. 

Standing in front of the huge, spiked gate, Voltaire rang the bell and began to shiver, snowflakes melting in his beard and wondering how badly he had miscalculated his choice of footwear. However, after only a few moments the gate creaked open and revealed a tall man of perhaps his own age, already dressed up in a huge velvet cape with a Dracula style collar. The man smiled and started to speak in German, gesturing expansively with long fingered hands, his nails sharp and painted. After perhaps a minute, however, when the musician did not respond, he fell silent and they stared at one another.

“Boo!”

Voltaire grinned, and the man gave a deep laugh. They shook hands and introduced themselves. Apparently this was Graf von Krolock, and he had been a little worried that the weather might prevent his guest from making the journey. His English was heavily accented and slowly spoken, as if he was out of practice. As they walked through the gate toward the main door of the castle, two more figures appeared running across the snow. One of them, a large man with a pronounced stoop as though he had once suffered from scoliosis, did not speak but instead immediately retrieved all the luggage, relieved Voltaire of his guitar case, and headed back inside. The remaining man was a ridiculously tall blonde in his early twenties, also wrapped in a velvet cape. It was lavender. He seized Voltaire’s hand and began chattering in German as well, before the Graf - Aurelio was sure that it was a title akin to count, rather than a first name - placed a hand on the younger man's shoulder and shushed him.

“This is my son, Herbert.” 

“And we are keeping you out in the snow!” Herbert's English flowed more smoothly than his father's, but still with a strong accent. Voltaire felt an arm being flung around his shoulders and, half wrapped in purple velvet, with the snow soaking through his pointy toed boots, they made their way across the courtyard and through the huge carved doors of the castle.

The main hall was hung with portraits in historical clothing, eerily realistic and yet looking grey and dead. Aurelio couldn't shake the feeling that they moved when he wasn't looking. He followed the two men up the grand staircase that spiralled up the side of the room and along dimly lit corridors until he was finally shown into his room. There was a huge four poster bed with dark, ragged hangings, and the attached bathroom contained no shower, only a tub big enough to drown a horse. The walls were lined with floor to ceiling mirrors, spotted with age and cracked in places. 

Something about the bathroom unsettled Voltaire, but he put it down to the fact it had a door at either end and he might accidentally walk in on another guest bathing. In fact, it occurred to him as he sat down to the meal that had been waiting in his room after his hosts had excused themselves, there did not seem to be any other guests at all that he could see. He shrugged, and filled a silver goblet with what turned out to be a very good red wine. These people were dedicated to the aesthetic. Perhaps the other guests were arriving tomorrow, on the day of the gig. 21st of December, the winter solstice in the northern hemisphere. 

The night of the Mitternacht Ball.

He was starting his set at 11pm, to end exactly three minutes before midnight. Herbert, who turned out to have been the person on the other end of the emails as his father had confessed himself “utterly perplexed by this modern technology,” however odd that was for a man who looked perhaps fifty, had been very specific about that. Aurelio had made a minor joke with an iron maiden song, and Herbert had patiently explained that the main event they were celebrating would take place just before the clock chimed twelve. They needed a couple of minutes to set the atmosphere before the big moment. The young man had been oddly reticent about what the event was, considering his habit of chattering nineteen to the dozen the rest of the time. Voltaire privately suspected there might be a marriage proposal involved, and the secrecy was to stop Herbert's boyfriend from finding out ahead of time.

*

It was late, and Voltaire tossed and turned in the great bed. His dreams were full of unsettling visions of ragged dead things flocking around his room as he danced with them, of his host shirtless and blood covered as they danced together, his own mouth filled with fangs. He saw himself all in white, biting a beautiful young woman as she lay on the floor and the Count and his son looked on. 

But he sensed something else. In the way of dreams, he felt the emotions of those around him. Herbert, bored and desperate for a distraction,, throwing his whole heart and soul into any diversion to escape the yawning abyss. From the Count, weariness. The sense of endless repetition, everything he did had been done hundreds of times before, centuries rendering him numb to even the greatest excesses, a middle aged Dorian Grey. But underlying these from them both, and flowing strongly from the shadowy figures that gyrated and rolled around the room, was something undeniable and so strong that the other feelings were almost swamped. Insatiable hunger. 

*

It was 10pm the following night, and Aurelio Voltaire stared into one of the old mirrors in the bathroom and tried to collect himself under the vague sense of threat that hung around the castle like fog. He still hadn't seen a single guest. In fact, he hadn't seen any castle inhabitants either until a couple of hours ago, when he had accidentally opened the bathroom door on Herbert sitting on the edge of the tub while he chatted to a red haired woman relaxing in the bubbles. Aurelio had tried to apologise and withdraw with his dignity intact, but the redhead had grinned at him, leaned over the edge of the bath while swatting Herbert out of the way, and given the musician a very suggestive once over while demanding he come in and be introduced properly. Her name was Magda, her English was not quite as fluent as Herbert's but perfectly understandable, and she subjected him to a very awkward five minutes while he tried to field Herbert's suggestive comments and avoid staring at her sizeable breasts. She was, as far as he could make out, staying in the castle because the Count owed her some form of favour and appeared to greatly enjoy alternately teasing and torturing him. Voltaire was very much relieved when he could finally make a polite escape. 

There had been a thump as something his his bedroom door when he closed it behind him, a masculine shout of “Don't forget your sponge!” followed by splashing and shrieks of laughter from them both. He had no idea what it was about and, frankly, was not going to ask. 

*

He stood on the stage that had been erected at one end of the huge, shadowy ballroom and looked out at his audience, squinting against the bright spotlight. It was almost time to end the set, and he had never been more unsettled while on stage. Over the entirety of his career, he had never played to a crowd quite this odd. Voltaire had headlined cons, renaissance fairs, goth festivals in sleet lashed English seaside towns, but he had never seen people like these. It was not so much what they looked like. It was fairly common for his audience to look as if the inhabitants of a mortuary had dressed themselves by crawling through the costume supply room of a pantomime. It was the way they reacted. 

Magda, Herbert and a couple of teenagers he hadn't met were standing at the front, shrieking with laughter at his jokes and waving their arms in the air. Graf von Krolock was nowhere to be seen. The other forty or fifty people in the room were what was putting him off. They danced in unison, every move looking choreographed, and sang the choruses of his songs like a professional choir. Perfect in pitch and beat. But while he was speaking they were as still as the grave. He shrugged internally, his famous smile in place as he thrashed out the final chords to ‘When You're Evil’ on his acoustic and wished everyone a good night just as the clock hit three minutes to twelve. 

The spotlight blinked out as he bent to put the guitar in its case, leaving the room temporarily lit by candles. He blinked frantically, trying to adjust his vision, and the light snapped on again. It was directed at the top of the spiral staircase this time, revealing Graf von Krolock standing with his hands on the banister. The Count began to sing in German, and the horde turned to watch him, again moving in eerie unison and performing some kind of call and response with the castle’s owner. Aurelio felt an icy cold touch on his hand and turned to see Magda crouched beside him on the stage, grinning. 

“Come with me. You won't want to see what happens next.” 

“I-” but she had already dragged him to his feet and out of a side door. He clutched his guitar case in one hand and concentrated on keeping up as she raced through pitch black corridors, cackling like a madwoman. Finally they emerged into the great hall once more, the portraits clearly moving this time, high pitched voices coming from their occupants. He thought he recognised the song but had no time to consider it as Magda flung open the great doors by slamming her shoulder into them as she still held his hand in a grip of iron. She ran forward again, her dress trailing in the knee high snow, staggering at times in her stiletto boots but always pulling him along with the strength of ten men. 

A taxi waited by the great spiked gate, the driver slamming the boot on what he recognised as his own luggage. He handed over his guitar case, perplexed at being pushed out of the castle so early. His flight wasn't until tomorrow evening. Turning to Magda, he saw that she was giggling almost uncontrollably, but seemingly unaffected by the cold. She stepped forward and wound her arms around his neck. Voltaire tried to give her a polite hug goodbye, as she looked barely twenty five and he himself was over fifty, but she held him trapped close against her and whispered in his ear, rapidly and breathlessly as if she had only seconds to speak. 

“I like you! Nobody has made us laugh so much in so long. Being dead is strange. So I have followed a different tradition, because I like you and to irritate Breda! Once before people escaped the dance of the vampires, and today again. Come back one day if you want, when you know about us. Look us up!” 

Then she stood on her toes and Aurelio was worried she was going to try and kiss him. He was shaking from the cold, wearing only a light jacket he performed in, and he realised that Magda felt like ice, so cold in his arms that he could feel it through her dress and his own clothes. She did not kiss him, instead nipping playfully at his neck and finally stepping back when he brought his hands between them and shoved her off. He glared at her, and climbed into the taxi. The driver already had the engine running and it was blessedly warm. The clock read 11:59. As the car pulled away, he saw Magda waving, and heard her shout.

“Goodbye, my friend! On the stroke of midnight you will find out what it means to have been part of the Tanz der Vampire!” 

He shook his head, touching his neck to find she had drawn blood when she had bitten him. He frowned at the road ahead, wondering what she had meant. Glancing at the dashboard, he saw the time change to midnight, and everything went black.

*

He came to slumped across the back seat of the cab, with nothing visible in the headlights but snow and trees. He was so thirsty, he must have been asleep for hours. But no. The faint glow of the clock read 00:01. He became aware that something felt different, and reached up to touch his face. Inch long fangs protruded where his natural canines had once been. 

Voltaire grinned, his trademark suggestive smile. He understood. This wouldn't hurt his career at all. And the taxi driver smelled delicious...


End file.
